Dance with Death

by Will Thomas

  Rebecca jumped to her feet.

  “I’ll do it in ten,” she said.

  True to her word, she was ready early. She threw a white wrapper over a plain black dress, clasped with a brooch of jet.

  “Move along, Thomas,” she scolded. “We don’t want to be late.”

  I nodded. “Perish the thought.”

  We made good time, but the evening service traffic slowed our progress and I feared we would be late. However, we arrived in front of the museum just as we heard Big Ben tolling somewhere in the distance.

  “There he is!” I said, pointing at a man who had just left the museum and was in the act of donning his gloves. He was a dapper fellow of more than fifty years with a top hat and a white scarf around his throat.

  “Who is he, this friend of yours?” Rebecca asked, regarding him curiously.

  “He’s a librarian of sorts,” I said. “He works in a volunteer capacity for the Reading Room at the British Museum, you might say. His name is Liam Grant. He’s a gentleman. That is, he doesn’t work, and he spends all of his time here in the Reading Room studying and occasionally helping patrons find the information they desire. He inhabits the place. I honestly don’t think he’s left this square in five years at least. His passion is esoterica. I suspect the man may be a wizard. Come!”

  We descended from the cab and mounted the stairs of the museum in time to meet him coming down.

  “Liam!” I cried.

  “What? Thomas?” he replied. “Thomas Llewelyn, where did you come from? And who is this extraordinary goddess?”

  I made introductions. Grant adjusted his pince-nez spectacles the better to see my wife. There was something molelike about him, as if he’d been hiding in the bowels of the museum too long and had forgotten the outside world.

  He bowed. “I’m so very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Llewelyn. We were about to despair of this fellow. He needed taming from a female of the species. How is that coming along?”

  “He’s a work in progress,” she replied.

  “I was just going to have dinner at the Alpha across the street. Have you any objection to joining me for coffee and cake? I’m in the museum all day, you see. They need me there at the Reading Room.”

  Rebecca looked at me. It wasn’t done by her circle, a young woman visiting a common public house.

  “I’d be delighted,” she said, surprising me.

  Grant smiled. “Excellent!”

  He offered an arm and she accepted it, accompanying him down the final steps. When we were across the street, we entered the Alpha. That is, the two of them entered and I followed along behind like an afterthought. Once inside, Grant made a number of signals with his hand to the publican and sat down at a table covered in rings from ten thousand pint glasses.

  Rebecca’s eyes were glittering. She came from the tearoom set and being here was exciting, even daring. If someone she knew saw her here with this rabble, she might not live it down in the City.

  “What brings you here, Thomas?” Liam asked. “I presume you require some piece of information. I hope your visit will be worth your while.”

  “So do I,” I said. “I don’t know if I caught hold of the wrong end of the stick, but do you recall a rumor or a fact or a legend, I’m not certain which, that there are tunnels under any of the royal palaces? That is, tunnels leading to other places?”

  A pint of stout had appeared at Grant’s elbow and he stopped to refresh himself. I had ordered a stout as well, and Rebecca held a dry sherry in one of those impossibly small glasses that look like they belong in a doll’s house.

  Grant let out a long, slow “Ahhhh” after his first gulp, which every man understands as the First Swallow, not to be hurried.

  “Tunnels,” he said, nodding. “I love tunnels. If you connected every tunnel under London they would stretch all the way to Rome, I believe. I’ve made a map of London tunnels. That is to say I purchased a map and drew in all the tunnels I’ve found in my research. Some I marked in red as solid fact. Some are in green, meaning completely disproven and fallacious. And some in sepia because I like sepia. It stands for ‘not yet proven.’ I saw your name in the newspapers this week at Kensington Palace. There is a line on my map at Kensington in sepia brown. Neither proven nor disproven.”

  “I’d like to see that map,” I remarked.

  Rebecca nodded. “So would I.”

  Grant’s meal arrived then, simple sandwiches with chips. I saw what was in the sandwiches and glanced away. I don’t eat tongue, under the theory that I won’t eat anything that tastes me back. Undaunted, however, Grant tucked in.

  Rebecca took the opportunity to glance at me, with a smile upon her lips. Eccentric, that smile said, but harmless. I looked down at his shoes and she did the same. There was thick wool felt glued to the bottoms, lest he should make noise in the Reading Room. She covered her mouth with the glass of sherry.

  “I daresay you’ve been down one or two of those tunnels,” Grant said after the sandwich was consumed.

  “I’ve been down an even dozen, I should think,” I replied.

  “Are there any you would care to mention?” he asked. “I’m always looking for more.”

  “Not without permission.”

  “Of course not, dear fellow,” Grant answered, holding up his hand. “I would not want you to get into trouble with such a man as Mr. Cyrus Barker.”

  Grant had never met the Guv, but had developed an exaggerated sense of his importance, his wisdom, and his saintliness. Goodness knows where he acquired it, unless my partner was giving regularly to the British Museum, which, of course, he might. I do our business accounts, but not Barker’s personal or charitable ones.

  “Fortunate you are, Mr. Llewelyn,” Grant continued, “to have a fine employer and a beautiful wife. What more could any man ask?”

  Rebecca smiled. “I like this fellow.”

  “I won’t argue about the second, at least.”

  “Where was I? The map!” he exclaimed. “Would you really like to see it?”

  “Certainly. I’d love to.”

  “We could look at it now if you wish,” he said before draining the final gulp of his pint glass. “It’s in my flat in Montague Place, across from the museum. You know. You’ve been there before.” He turned to Rebecca. “That is, madam, if you are not affronted by the abode of an old bachelor who has more bibelots than sense.”

  “We wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,” Rebecca replied. She knew me too well already. To see a man’s nest is to know the man.

  “Not a bit of it,” Grant replied. “I’ll make some tea and let you see the map.”

  He stood, paid for us all, and offered an elbow to my wife again like a courtier. She took it and the two of them stepped out into the balmy evening.

  “That’s the one,” he said, cocking his head in the direction of a building at the far end of the road. “There on the corner.”

  “An agreeable spot,” Rebecca murmured.

  “I think so. What could be more wonderful than to awaken in this wonderful city every morning to the view of such a wonderful building? She is wife and mistress to me, if that is not being coarse.”

  “You never married?” she asked.

  “No one would marry this old wreck, good woman, and I was so reticent a young man I could barely stammer out a greeting, let alone a proposal.”

  “You’re doing well so far,” she replied, smiling at Grant. “You do understand that there are a number of women of a certain age in this town that would like to meet a gentleman such as yourself.”

  “My blushes, madam. Now you’re telling tales at my expense.”

  We reached the door of a respectable row of attached flats. He led us up the stairs and pulled an old key from his pocket in a way that somehow reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge. Then he threw open the door.

  The first thing we saw was the tall row of bookcases that completely blocked our view of the rest of the room. He led us along the wall until we came �
��round to a fireplace near the window and a pair of old leather chairs. Then one noticed his library. They were not merely walls of books but cases coming out perpendicular to the room at intervals as like an actual library. Each shelf had some curio from ancient times and far-off places: statues of unknown deities, shrunken heads, prayer beads, Egyptian statuary, and rune-covered stones. There was an owl I assumed was stuffed until it turned its head and looked at me, and above us, suspended horizontally from the ceiling, was an entire Nile crocodile. Thankfully, that was stuffed.

  “They were out of space at the museum, and I bought it for two pounds,” he said, noticing our upward gaze. “Two of the conservators helped me carry it here. They claim Captain Speke shot it, but it’s not proven!”

  “This is quite a place,” I said. Even though I had seen it before, it was still quite impressive. “Merlin would be very comfortable here.”

  “Thank you, Thomas,” he answered. “That was the intent. I’ll make some tea and then I shall find that map.”

  The tea was good enough, or so Rebecca said later, and Liam Grant did find the map after all. It reminded me of Henry Mayhew’s maps of the London poor, colored in sections. Here was an extended crypt under a church, there was an unfinished railway tunnel, or a sewer shaft sunk by that engineering genius Bazalgette. The information from a thousand sources had been collected and plotted onto this one subterranean map, and I imagined a thousand people would like to get their hands upon it. My partner would be one of them.

  “Do you see any glaring errors?” he asked. “I would imagine you know this city as well as anyone.”

  “Not from what I see here,” I said, shaking my head. “According to this, London has an entirely different topography twenty feet below. It’s honeycombed in every direction. There is a subterranean city below the city.”

  “That is why I made this map, to keep track of everything.”

  “How accurate is it?” Rebecca asked.

  “That’s the problem, Mrs. Llewelyn,” Liam Grant said, pouring cream into his tea. “I rarely leave the comfort of this street, and I haven’t been in a tunnel in my entire life, unless it was a railway tunnel. This map is all conjecture, I’m afraid. Speculations, legends, fairy tales, if you will. Oh, some of this information is bona fide, on the word of experts. Some of the tunnels existed once, but were later filled with rubble. Here, for example, are mass graves from the Plague years. And here is a mosaic tile from a Roman residence. This tunnel was begun and in an advanced state when the railway company went out bankrupt. Rather than sell to a triumphant competitor, the president of the railway blew up the supports and let it fall.”

  “Is that what you do all day?” my wife asked. “Research?”

  “It is, and the British Museum is the ideal place to study. I came into a bit of family money several years ago, and have been living upon the residuals. Not a fortune, but enough to meet a bachelor’s needs.”

  “Why, your rooms look like an extension of the library itself,” she remarked. I had to agree with her.

  Grant gave a small but satisfied smile. “The museum can’t keep everything, obviously, and books arrive daily by the lot. Some have been purchased for the collections and others are donated. I’m able to lay hands on them before they are dispersed.”

  “So, you go there all day, and at night you bring a book or a piece of historical bric-a-brac home with you,” she continued, amazed by what she had seen.

  “He doesn’t tell anyone that he isn’t a librarian,” I told her. “And since he knows the museum better than anyone, he answers questions as if he were. As a matter of fact, that is how I met Mr. Grant myself.”

  “The staff treats me with great tolerance,” he admitted.

  “Confess it, Liam,” I said. “You pay for the privilege. I’m sure you help support the museum financially.”

  “In a small way. One does what one can.”

  “Exactly where is Kensington Palace on this map?”

  “Ah, yes. The tunnel,” he said, pointing. “Here it is. William of Orange and Queen Mary purchased what was then called Nottingham House in 1689 and hired Christopher Wren to design a castle on the premises, but he merely added to the original buildings. So, the tunnel could predate the castle by a century.”

  “What was the purpose of the tunnel?” I asked. “It looks like it leads to the Goat Tavern. Granted, the tavern has fine food, but the palace has its own chefs. And if a royal gets hungry for some fish-and-chips, he can just send a servant through the front gate should he so desire. Why a tunnel, then?”

  “Why indeed? From time to time, especially in the evenings, members of the royal family—male members, that is—may feel the need to stretch their limbs without being recognized. Public scrutiny is the bane of royal houses. Kensington began to be filled with mansions and shops around the palace, stripping them of their freedom to…”

  “To visit low women and drink vintage wines in houses of assignation,” Rebecca supplied. “Bawdy houses.”

  Grant’s face pinked. “Yes, ma’am. If you see a tunnel near a palace you may be certain it was for nocturnal purposes.”

  “You don’t say,” I remarked. I was not a little shocked at the turn of conversation my wife had instigated.

  “Mr. Grant, do you believe the tunnel is there?” Rebecca asked.

  “I do.”

  “And not destroyed?”

  He shook his head. “It would be too much work and expense to remove it, not to mention the revelation would bring a scandal on the royal house. Really, it was only minor royalty who used the palace after 1760, so why bother destroying the tunnel, anyway? It may be bricked over or locked and chained, but I believe it is there.”

  I wasn’t going to allow him to get by based on an opinion.

  “Why?” I asked. “If I may play devil’s advocate, why would you, a scholar, believe it without proof?”

  “It rings true,” he said. “If there were a tunnel, it would be to the closest property, which is the Goat. Public houses require licensing at the discretion of the king. Also, any public house would be glad to help His Royal Highness or his progeny.”

  “No, no, that won’t wash, Liam. That’s a very long distance in a tunnel merely to step out to a private house on a Saturday evening. I don’t believe it.”

  “Very well. Then consider this. Let us suppose there is some kind of danger to the royal family. An insurrection or a war. The royals would need to reach safety while people outside the palace think the family is still trapped inside.”

  “Now that I might believe,” I said. “It’s likely that every royal residence has some kind of tunnel to protect the heirs.”

  “Of course, the existence of a tunnel is a classic sword of Damocles,” Grant murmured, nodding.

  “True. One cannot build a tunnel that only goes in one direction.”

  “Precisely.”

  I mulled over that thought—several thoughts, in fact—still trying to work out what I was thinking.

  “One could not build a tunnel that leads to nowhere; that is, open-ended.”

  “True,” our host said again. “The palace had no idea what might be built upon the other entrance over time.”

  “That leads me to infer that the Goat Tavern has had a relationship with the palace for centuries. It could not be purchased by a third party without royal consent. It may be a functioning public house, but it is also an extension of the palace in a way.”

  Rebecca looked away, lost in her own thoughts. On the other hand, Liam Grant looked keen as a knife’s edge.

  “Thomas, you came here for a reason. Are you going to trust me? You don’t need to, you know.”

  “Forgive me, Liam. I was occupied, and not seeing how things might look from your end. I don’t trust many people. Few have given me reason to, but you appear to be the sort of fellow who understands the importance of discretion.”

  Liam Grant said nothing, but nodded, as if in thanks.

  “When Cyrus Barker an
d I were walking toward the palace two days ago, having just finished eating at this selfsame Goat Tavern, there was an attempt on Prince George’s life within only a few hundred yards of where we stood. I grassed the assassin who tried to shoot him, but he himself was shot by a second and killed. Now Barker and I have walked about the grounds again and we came to the same conclusion: the second assassin shot the first from the roof of the palace itself. After that he completely disappeared. The roof is not easily accessible for obvious reasons. We have not even been given access to it ourselves.”

  “Whereas,” Grant continued, “if the assassin had access to a tunnel so old the current residents have no knowledge of it, he could leave the premises unseen.”

  “Completely unseen.”

  “Of course you have no proof, but it is an enquiry worth investigating. And in fact, you are an enquiry agent.”

  “That works out neatly, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “There is one thing that puzzles me,” he said by the light of the fire, which played along the lines and seams of his wise face.

  “Oh?” I said. “Just one? Well, out with it, then.”

  “What was Cyrus Barker doing there before the event even began?”

  “Aye, there’s the rub.”

  We said our adieus and I hailed a cab as it passed the dark exterior of the museum. Rebecca was silent and I wondered if one of us had done something to put her off. Normally, I know what bone-headed mistake I make as soon as I make it, but not this time.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, after waiting a few agonizing moments without either of us saying a word.

  “I’m stupid,” she said as she began searching through her clutch.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m uneducated. I was taught at the Jews’ Free School, where a girl learns how to be a good Jew, but it doesn’t prepare one for living in a world of Gentiles. I don’t know what a sword of Damocles is. I can’t participate in a conversation between two highly intelligent gentlemen. I thought I could, but I was wrong.”

  “Of course you did. You were wonderful!”